M.I.T. has just announced it is expanding its list of free online courses anyone can take. Attendees earn completion certificates. M.I.T.'s OpenCourseWare project already offers 2,100 courses used by 100 million people. OpenCulture, Free Ed, E-learning Center, and Alison offer competing free online courses, including many on computing and IT certification.

It is just for the interest, not for any possible career so if I can't reach the sky, no big deal. Been interested in atoms and the universe since I was a kid but microchip tech got to me.

As it happens a quick dip into the test questions showed that the Thorium cycle is now covered, but I hadn't a clue about the binding energy equations, still interesting though.

If my kids can't get into a decent college later on for lack of scholarships, this might be a good away to get some credit for whatever they find an interest in. Perhaps these credits can be turned into a fast track regular degree.

I wish I could have done the same 30 years ago in hindsight (except the web and PCs didn't exist), the college experience is somewhat over rated.

Well well, I did Physics A-level too back in 75 or so, it was my favorite but then the integrated circuit was just starting to get interesting and the prospect of working on a British microprocessor chip (later the transputer) was unbeatable. That eventually got me over here.

Back then physics also included nuclear energy and some binding energy stuff as well, enough to do rough calculations on energy which I have mostly forgotten. I want to get that back in my head to follow what is now coming along like SMRs.

The last time I met a UK prof, they were very sad about the decline in University enrollments in physics, like 20* down over the 70s, nobody wants to study hard for it anymore.

Kids I know that went the soft side into web dev haven't fared well either, easy degree means competing with kids from India.

US kids go to college 1 year earlier but stay for 4yrs so graduate about the same time. I think that's right, it is still very foreign to me even with kids in elementary.